Infant mortality -- sad but true.

Although we can only estimate levels and trends of infant mortality prior to the most recent centuries, it seems probable that through much of human history 30 to 40 percent of all infants born died before they could celebrate their first birthdays.

it seems cruel that the One and Triune God would allow an avenue of salvation for those who had reached the "perfect age" while excluding the most tender and innocent members of those pagan societies, infants and young children.

(2) God has a special love for and chooses a certain number of angels and men whom He wills efficaciously to save. Predestination to glory thus precedes in the order of intention the foreseeing of merits. (3) God puts at the disposal of the elect intrinsically and infallibly efficacious graces whereby infallibly, although freely, they will merit eternal life and attain it." (Father Garrigou-Lagrange, Predestination, page 175)

it seems cruel that the One and Triune God would allow an avenue of salvation for those who had reached the "perfect age" while excluding the most tender and innocent members of those pagan societies, infants and young children.

The formula for Baptism is simple, "I baptize you..." with some water added in. It does not, as far as I can tell, even require the Trinitarian formula, although, that is, by far, the preferred form.

Predestination can also be understood as relating to the foreknowledge of God who stands outside history past, present and future and sees all the free will decisions of every man before he is even created.

Tornpage wrote:
Infants who die in infancy without baptism have no merits that are foreseen by God, and neither do those who receive baptism. The latter group has been chosen by Him for eternal bliss. The former group has not.

Some (not here) have accused me of being some kind of hard a** (I'm sure all Feeneyites have been so accused) for holding this view. I don't do so with relish, but because I simply believe it is the only view that accords with the truth of the way things are.

These babies who are not baptized have no chance to merit any reward. As I posted on my thread regarding 1 Timothy 2:4, evidently the thought is that God has left these babies to certain "chances" that His governance of the universe requires. Frankly, I don't understand that.

I think any other system or understanding of Predestination - God simply elects certain souls to share in His state of bliss by way of His gratuitous mercy - falls apart when we consider the fate of unbaptized infants. God clearly does not will equally the salvation of all men, and you can't blame these infants for any action on their part for the "loss" of Heaven.

Infants who die before maturity have no free will decisions to be seen. Such actions clearly do not determine their fate. No clearer example could show that salvation does not wait upon the actions of men.

Granted that it does appear that immature infants have no free will. But what if they matured and developed free will and missused it. God certainly knows whether they would do so or not even before the soul itself made those freewill decissions.

Tornpage wrote:
So rather than draw the obvious conclusion that God's election of souls to salvation is gratuitous and not based on foreseen acts of will (for these infants never have acts of will) you go to the length of saying God sees a universe of events that doesn't happen (but would) and kills these infants before they do what they don't do.

I prefer to draw the obvious conclusion.

God sees a universe of events that doesn't happen (but would) and kills these infants before they do what they don't do.

I prefer to draw the obvious conclusion.

tornpage wrote:

Granted that it does appear that immature infants have no free will. But what if they matured and developed free will and missused it. God certainly knows whether they would do so or not even before the soul itself made those freewill decissions.

So rather than draw the obvious conclusion that God's election of souls to salvation is gratuitous and not based on foreseen acts of will (for these infants never have acts of will) you go to the length of saying God sees a universe of events that doesn't happen (but would) and kills these infants before they do what they don't do.

I prefer to draw the obvious conclusion.

Let's see, it's either the first option, or "go to the length of saying God sees a universe of events that doesn't happen (but would) and kills these infants before they do what they don't do".

The just and merciful God who "kills infants". I wonder what obvious conclusion one could draw from that.

Even the infant who you say He “kills “ (a word specially chosen I imagine to have the full emotive effect) has it's life taken from it by God either as a mercy or a punishment.

you go to the length of saying God sees a universe of events that doesn't happen (but would) and kills these infants before they do what they don't do.

tornpage wrote:

Let's see, it's either the first option, or "go to the length of saying God sees a universe of events that doesn't happen (but would) and kills these infants before they do what they don't do".

The just and merciful God who "kills infants". I wonder what obvious conclusion one could draw from that.

Empty sarcasm.

Do you want to add anything of substance?

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,"63 allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

Can’t I have some fun with this?

tornpage wrote:

Can’t I have some fun with this?

Sure, sure - by all means.

I've learned to grease my dander down pretty good

tornpage wrote: but you still get it to rise up every now and then.

As a logical conclusion to their theory, the Semi-Pelgians necessarily arrived at mediate knowledge, at least in regard to the salvation of infants. They were therefore obliged to solve this objection: among infants, some, without any merit on their part, are predestined to baptism and eternal life. But not willing to admit gratuitous predestination even in this case, the Semi-Pelagians replied: God knows even the conditional future, and predestined to baptism those infants who He foresaw would have consented to grace and persevered if they had reached the age of adults. 4

Footnote 4: And, on the other hand, infants who die without baptism would be punished for sins which they would have committed if they had lived for a long time. Thus, they would be punished for sins that were not real but only conditional, which is unjust.

tornpage wrote:Columba,

Just read this and it's relevant to our past discussion, so I thought I'd post it.

In his book, Grace, Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange wrote regarding the Semi-pelagians:

As a logical conclusion to their theory, the Semi-Pelgians necessarily arrived at mediate knowledge, at least in regard to the salvation of infants. They were therefore obliged to solve this objection: among infants, some, without any merit on their part, are predestined to baptism and eternal life. But not willing to admit gratuitous predestination even in this case, the Semi-Pelagians replied: God knows even the conditional future, and predestined to baptism those infants who He foresaw would have consented to grace and persevered if they had reached the age of adults. 4

Footnote 4: And, on the other hand, infants who die without baptism would be punished for sins which they would have committed if they had lived for a long time. Thus, they would be punished for sins that were not real but only conditional, which is unjust.

Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence
by Father Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure and St. Claude de la Colombiere

GOD CONTROLS ALL EVENTS, WHETHER GOOD OR BAD

Nothing happens in the the universe without God willing and allowing it. This statement must he taken absolutely of everything with the exception of sin. 'Nothing occurs by chance in the whole course of our lives' is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, 'and God intervenes everywhere.'

I am the Lord, He tells us Himself by the mouth of the prophet Isaias, and there is none else. I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. 1 It is I who bring both death and life, I who inflict wounds and heal them, He said to Moses. 'The Lord killeth and maketh alive, it is written in the Canticle of Anna, the mother of Samuel, He bringeth down to the tomb and He bringeth back again; the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he humbleth and he exalteth. Shall there be evil (disaster, affliction) in a city which the Lord hath not done? asks the prophet Amos: Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches are from God Solomon proclaims. And so on in numerous other passages of Scripture.

Perhaps you will say that while this is true of certain necessary effects, like sickness, death, cold and heat, and other accidents due to natural causes which have no liberty of action, the same cannot be said in the case of things that result from the free will of man. For if, you will object, someone slanders me, robs me, strikes me, persecutes me, how can I attribute his conduct to the will of God who far from wishing me to be treated in such a manner, expressly forbids it? So the blame, you will conclude, can only be laid on the will of man, on his ignorance or malice. This is the defense behind which we try to shelter from God and excuse our lack of courage and submission.

It is quite useless for us to try and take advantage of this way of reasoning as an excuse for not surrendering to Providence. God Himself has refuted it and we must believe on His word that in events of this kind as in all others, nothing occurs except by His order and permission.

Let us see what the Scriptures say. He wishes to punish the murder and adultery committed by David and He expresses Himself as follows by the mouth of the prophet Nathan: Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in my sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me, and host taken the wife of Urias the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thy own house, and I will take thy wives before thy eyes and give them to thy neighbor and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing in the sight of all all Israel, and in the sight of the sun.

Later when the Jews by their iniquities had grievously offended Him and provoked His wrath, He says: The Assyrian is the rod and the staff of my anger, and my indignation is in his hands. I will send him to the deceitful nation, and I will give him charge against the people of my wrath, to take away the spoils, and to lay hold on the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

Could God more openly declare Himself to be responsible for the evils that Absalom caused his father and the King of Assyria the Jews? It would be easy to find other instances but these are enough. Let us conclude then with St. Augustine: "All that happens to us in this world against our will (whether due to men or to other causes) happens to us only by the will of God, by the disposal of Providence, by His orders and under His guidance; and if from the frailty of our understanding we cannot grasp the reason for some event, let us attribute it to divine Providence, show Him respect by accepting it from His hand, believe firmly that He does not send it us without cause."

Replying to the murmurs and complaints of the Jews who attributed their captivity and sufferings to misfortune and causes other than the will of God, the prophet Jeremias says to them: Who is he that hath commanded a thing to be done, when the Lord commandeth it not? Do not both evil and good proceed out of the mouth of the Highest? Why doth a living man murmur, a man suffering for his sins? Let us search our ways, and seek, and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord in the heavens, saying, We have done wickedly and provoked thee to wrath; therefore thou art inexorable. 8

Are not these words clear enough? We should take them to heart for our own good. Let us be careful to attribute everything to the will of God and believe that all is guided by His paternal hand.

HOW CAN GOD WILL OR ALLOW EVIL?

However, you will perhaps now say, there is sinfulness in all these actions. How then can God will them and take part in them if He is all-holy and can have nothing in common with sin?

God indeed is not and cannot he the author of sin. But it must he remembered that in every sin there are two parts to be distinguished, one natural and the other moral. Thus, in the action of the man you think you have a grievance against there is, for example, the movement of the arm that strikes you or the tongue that offends you, and the movement of the will that turns aside from right reason and the law of God. The physical action of the arm or the tongue, like all natural things, is quite good in itself and there is nothing to prevent its being produced with and by God's cooperation. What is evil, what God could not cooperate with, is the sinful intention which the will of man contributes to the act.

When a man walks with a crippled leg the movement he makes comes both from the soul and the leg, but the defect which causes him to walk badly is only in the leg. In the same way all evil actions must be attributed to God and to man in so far as they are natural, physical acts, but they can be attributed only to the will of man in so far as they are sinful and blameworthy.

If then someone strikes you or slanders you, as the movement of the arm or tongue is in no way a sin, God can very well be, and actually is, the author of it; for existence and movement in man not less than in any other creature proceed not from himself but from God, who acts in him and by him. For in Him says St. Paul, we live and move and have our being. As for the malice of the intention, it proceeds entirely from man and in it alone is the sinfulness in which God has no share but which He yet permits in order not to interfere with our freedom of will.

Moreover, when God cooperates with the person who attacks or robs you, He doubtless intends to deprive you of health or goods because you are making a wrong use of them and they will be harmful to your soul. But He does not intend that the attacker or robber should take them from you by a sin. That is the part of human malice, not God's design.

An example may make the matter clearer. A criminal is condemned to death by fair trial. But the executioner happens to be a personal enemy of his, and instead of carrying out the judge's sentence as a duty, he does so in a spirit of hate and revenge. Obviously the judge has no share in the executioner's sin. The will and intention of the judge is not that this sin should he committed, but that justice should take its course and the criminal be punished.

In the same way God has no share at all in the wickedness of the man who strikes or robs you. That is something particular to the man himself. God, as we have said, wishes to make you see your own faults, to humble you, deprive you of what you possess, in order to free you from vice and lead you to virtue; but this good and merciful design, which He could carry out in numerous other ways without any sin being involved, has nothing in common with the sin of the man who acts as His instrument. And in fact it is not this man's evil intention or sin that causes you to suffer, humiliates or impoverishes you, but the loss of your well being, your good name or you possessions. The sin harms only the person who is guilty of it. This is the way we ought to separate the good from the evil in events of this kind, and distinguish what God operates through men from what men add to the act by their own will.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

St. Gregory sets the same truth before us in another light. A doctor, he says orders leeches to be applied. While these small creatures are drawing blood from the patient their only aim is to gorge themselves and suck up as much of it as they can. The doctor's only intention is to have the impure blood drawn from the patient and to cure him in this manner. There is therefore no relation between the insatiable greed of the leeches and the intelligent purpose of the doctor in using them. The patient himself does not protest at their use. He does not regard the leeches as evildoers. Rather he tries to overcome the repugnance the sight of their ugliness causes and help them in their action, in the knowledge that the doctor has judged it useful for his health.

God makes use of men as the doctor does of leeches. Neither should we then stop to consider the evilness of those to whom God gives power to act on us or be grieved at their wicked intentions, and we should keep ourselves from feelings of aversion towards them. Whatever their particular views may be, in regard to us they are only instruments of wellbeing, guided by the hand of an all-good, all-wise, all-powerful God who will allow them to act on us only in so far as is of use to us. It is in our interest to welcome instead of trying to repel their assaults, as in very truth they come from God. And it is the same with all creatures of whatever kind. Not one of them could act upon us unless the power were given it from above.

This truth has always been familiar to the minds of those truly enlightened by God. We have a celebrated example in Job. He loses his children and his possessions; he falls from the height of fortune to the depths of poverty. And he says The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. As it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done. Blessed be the name of the Lord. 10 "Note" observes St. Augustine "Job does not say 'The Lord gave and the devil hath taken away' but says, wise that he is, 'The Lord gave me my children and my possessions, and it is He who has taken them away; it has been done as it has pleased the Lord.'"

The example of Joseph is no less instructive. His brothers had sold him into slavery from malice and for a wicked purpose, and nevertheless the holy patriarch insists on attributing all to God's providence. God sent me, he says, before you into Egypt to save life. . . . God sent me before you to preserve a remnant for you in the land, and to deliver you in striking way. Not you but God sent me here, and made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his house, and ruler over the land of Egypt.

Let us now listen to Our Savior himself who came down from heaven to teach us by His word and example. In an excess of zeal Peter tries to turn him aside from His purpose of submitting to His passion and prevent the soldiers laying their hands on Him. But Jesus said to him: Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?12 In fact He attributed the suffering and ignominy of His passion not to the Jews who accused him, not to Judas who betrayed Him, nor to Pilate who condemned Him, nor to the soldiers who ill-treated and crucified Him, nor to the devil who incited them all, though they were the immediate causes of His sufferings, but to God, and to God not considered as a strict judge but as a loving and beloved Father.

Let us never then attribute our losses, our disappointments, our afflictions, our humiliations to the devil or to men, but to God as their real source. "To act otherwise" says St. Dorothy, "would be to do the same as a dog who vents his anger on the stone instead of putting the blame on the hand that threw it at him." So let us be careful not to say 'So-and-so is the cause of my misfortune.' Your misfortunes are the work not of this or that person but of God. And what should give you reassurance is that God, the sovereign good, is guided in all His actions by His most profound wisdom for holy and supernatural purposes.

Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence
by Father Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure and St. Claude de la Colombiere

GOD CONTROLS ALL EVENTS, WHETHER GOOD OR BAD

Nothing happens in the the universe without God willing and allowing it. This statement must he taken absolutely of everything with the exception of sin. 'Nothing occurs by chance in the whole course of our lives' is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, 'and God intervenes everywhere.'

I am the Lord, He tells us Himself by the mouth of the prophet Isaias, and there is none else. I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. 1 It is I who bring both death and life, I who inflict wounds and heal them, He said to Moses. 'The Lord killeth and maketh alive, it is written in the Canticle of Anna, the mother of Samuel, He bringeth down to the tomb and He bringeth back again; the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he humbleth and he exalteth. Shall there be evil (disaster, affliction) in a city which the Lord hath not done? asks the prophet Amos: Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches are from God Solomon proclaims. And so on in numerous other passages of Scripture.

Perhaps you will say that while this is true of certain necessary effects, like sickness, death, cold and heat, and other accidents due to natural causes which have no liberty of action, the same cannot be said in the case of things that result from the free will of man. For if, you will object, someone slanders me, robs me, strikes me, persecutes me, how can I attribute his conduct to the will of God who far from wishing me to be treated in such a manner, expressly forbids it? So the blame, you will conclude, can only be laid on the will of man, on his ignorance or malice. This is the defense behind which we try to shelter from God and excuse our lack of courage and submission.

It is quite useless for us to try and take advantage of this way of reasoning as an excuse for not surrendering to Providence. God Himself has refuted it and we must believe on His word that in events of this kind as in all others, nothing occurs except by His order and permission.

Let us see what the Scriptures say. He wishes to punish the murder and adultery committed by David and He expresses Himself as follows by the mouth of the prophet Nathan: Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in my sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me, and host taken the wife of Urias the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thy own house, and I will take thy wives before thy eyes and give them to thy neighbor and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing in the sight of all all Israel, and in the sight of the sun.

Later when the Jews by their iniquities had grievously offended Him and provoked His wrath, He says: The Assyrian is the rod and the staff of my anger, and my indignation is in his hands. I will send him to the deceitful nation, and I will give him charge against the people of my wrath, to take away the spoils, and to lay hold on the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

Could God more openly declare Himself to be responsible for the evils that Absalom caused his father and the King of Assyria the Jews? It would be easy to find other instances but these are enough. Let us conclude then with St. Augustine: "All that happens to us in this world against our will (whether due to men or to other causes) happens to us only by the will of God, by the disposal of Providence, by His orders and under His guidance; and if from the frailty of our understanding we cannot grasp the reason for some event, let us attribute it to divine Providence, show Him respect by accepting it from His hand, believe firmly that He does not send it us without cause."

Replying to the murmurs and complaints of the Jews who attributed their captivity and sufferings to misfortune and causes other than the will of God, the prophet Jeremias says to them: Who is he that hath commanded a thing to be done, when the Lord commandeth it not? Do not both evil and good proceed out of the mouth of the Highest? Why doth a living man murmur, a man suffering for his sins? Let us search our ways, and seek, and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord in the heavens, saying, We have done wickedly and provoked thee to wrath; therefore thou art inexorable. 8

Are not these words clear enough? We should take them to heart for our own good. Let us be careful to attribute everything to the will of God and believe that all is guided by His paternal hand.

HOW CAN GOD WILL OR ALLOW EVIL?

However, you will perhaps now say, there is sinfulness in all these actions. How then can God will them and take part in them if He is all-holy and can have nothing in common with sin?

God indeed is not and cannot he the author of sin. But it must he remembered that in every sin there are two parts to be distinguished, one natural and the other moral. Thus, in the action of the man you think you have a grievance against there is, for example, the movement of the arm that strikes you or the tongue that offends you, and the movement of the will that turns aside from right reason and the law of God. The physical action of the arm or the tongue, like all natural things, is quite good in itself and there is nothing to prevent its being produced with and by God's cooperation. What is evil, what God could not cooperate with, is the sinful intention which the will of man contributes to the act.

When a man walks with a crippled leg the movement he makes comes both from the soul and the leg, but the defect which causes him to walk badly is only in the leg. In the same way all evil actions must be attributed to God and to man in so far as they are natural, physical acts, but they can be attributed only to the will of man in so far as they are sinful and blameworthy.

If then someone strikes you or slanders you, as the movement of the arm or tongue is in no way a sin, God can very well be, and actually is, the author of it; for existence and movement in man not less than in any other creature proceed not from himself but from God, who acts in him and by him. For in Him says St. Paul, we live and move and have our being. As for the malice of the intention, it proceeds entirely from man and in it alone is the sinfulness in which God has no share but which He yet permits in order not to interfere with our freedom of will.

Moreover, when God cooperates with the person who attacks or robs you, He doubtless intends to deprive you of health or goods because you are making a wrong use of them and they will be harmful to your soul. But He does not intend that the attacker or robber should take them from you by a sin. That is the part of human malice, not God's design.

An example may make the matter clearer. A criminal is condemned to death by fair trial. But the executioner happens to be a personal enemy of his, and instead of carrying out the judge's sentence as a duty, he does so in a spirit of hate and revenge. Obviously the judge has no share in the executioner's sin. The will and intention of the judge is not that this sin should he committed, but that justice should take its course and the criminal be punished.

In the same way God has no share at all in the wickedness of the man who strikes or robs you. That is something particular to the man himself. God, as we have said, wishes to make you see your own faults, to humble you, deprive you of what you possess, in order to free you from vice and lead you to virtue; but this good and merciful design, which He could carry out in numerous other ways without any sin being involved, has nothing in common with the sin of the man who acts as His instrument. And in fact it is not this man's evil intention or sin that causes you to suffer, humiliates or impoverishes you, but the loss of your well being, your good name or you possessions. The sin harms only the person who is guilty of it. This is the way we ought to separate the good from the evil in events of this kind, and distinguish what God operates through men from what men add to the act by their own will.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

St. Gregory sets the same truth before us in another light. A doctor, he says orders leeches to be applied. While these small creatures are drawing blood from the patient their only aim is to gorge themselves and suck up as much of it as they can. The doctor's only intention is to have the impure blood drawn from the patient and to cure him in this manner. There is therefore no relation between the insatiable greed of the leeches and the intelligent purpose of the doctor in using them. The patient himself does not protest at their use. He does not regard the leeches as evildoers. Rather he tries to overcome the repugnance the sight of their ugliness causes and help them in their action, in the knowledge that the doctor has judged it useful for his health.

God makes use of men as the doctor does of leeches. Neither should we then stop to consider the evilness of those to whom God gives power to act on us or be grieved at their wicked intentions, and we should keep ourselves from feelings of aversion towards them. Whatever their particular views may be, in regard to us they are only instruments of wellbeing, guided by the hand of an all-good, all-wise, all-powerful God who will allow them to act on us only in so far as is of use to us. It is in our interest to welcome instead of trying to repel their assaults, as in very truth they come from God. And it is the same with all creatures of whatever kind. Not one of them could act upon us unless the power were given it from above.

This truth has always been familiar to the minds of those truly enlightened by God. We have a celebrated example in Job. He loses his children and his possessions; he falls from the height of fortune to the depths of poverty. And he says The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. As it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done. Blessed be the name of the Lord. 10 "Note" observes St. Augustine "Job does not say 'The Lord gave and the devil hath taken away' but says, wise that he is, 'The Lord gave me my children and my possessions, and it is He who has taken them away; it has been done as it has pleased the Lord.'"

The example of Joseph is no less instructive. His brothers had sold him into slavery from malice and for a wicked purpose, and nevertheless the holy patriarch insists on attributing all to God's providence. God sent me, he says, before you into Egypt to save life. . . . God sent me before you to preserve a remnant for you in the land, and to deliver you in striking way. Not you but God sent me here, and made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his house, and ruler over the land of Egypt.

Let us now listen to Our Savior himself who came down from heaven to teach us by His word and example. In an excess of zeal Peter tries to turn him aside from His purpose of submitting to His passion and prevent the soldiers laying their hands on Him. But Jesus said to him: Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?12 In fact He attributed the suffering and ignominy of His passion not to the Jews who accused him, not to Judas who betrayed Him, nor to Pilate who condemned Him, nor to the soldiers who ill-treated and crucified Him, nor to the devil who incited them all, though they were the immediate causes of His sufferings, but to God, and to God not considered as a strict judge but as a loving and beloved Father.

Let us never then attribute our losses, our disappointments, our afflictions, our humiliations to the devil or to men, but to God as their real source. "To act otherwise" says St. Dorothy, "would be to do the same as a dog who vents his anger on the stone instead of putting the blame on the hand that threw it at him." So let us be careful not to say 'So-and-so is the cause of my misfortune.' Your misfortunes are the work not of this or that person but of God. And what should give you reassurance is that God, the sovereign good, is guided in all His actions by His most profound wisdom for holy and supernatural purposes..
columba

As distinctions are made in the Divine knowledge, so also in the Divine will, and one of these latter is of sufficient importance to deserve a passing notice here. This is the distinction between the antecedent and consequent will, and its principal application is to the question of man's salvation. God, according to St. Paul (1 Timothy 2:4),"wills that all men be saved", and this is explained to be an antecedent will; that is to say, abstracting from circumstances and conditions which may interfere with the fulfilment of God's will (e.g., sin on man's part, natural order in the universe, etc.), He has a sincere wish that all men should attain supernatural salvation, and this will is so far efficacious that He provides and intends the necessary means of salvation for all — sufficient actual graces for those who are capable of cooperating with them and the Sacrament of Baptism for infants.

The physical action of the arm or the tongue, like all natural things, is quite good in itself and there is nothing to prevent its being produced with and by God's cooperation. What is evil, what God could not cooperate with, is the sinful intention which the will of man contributes to the act.

Tornpage wrote:
Columba,

The question on the table at the moment is a bit narrower than that which you address. The question I'm raising is the tension between what is described as God's will to save all men and the fact (or proposition) that, despite that will, some men are not saved due to no fault or sin of their own. Thus, something other that a free agent's sin is permitted to be interposed between God's will to save and the salvation of some men.

The "physical actions" have God's cooperation, and yet we are being told that these actions (the "natural order in the universe") may prevent some men (the infants who die without baptism) from entrance to the Beatific Vision contrary to God's will that these same men be saved, and absent any "sinful intention" of a free agent being interposed.

I have a problem with that. I do not see how God could let his will to save an innocent human soul (one that has not committed any personal sin) be defeated by blind chance or a non-moral "natural order."